What do Viagra and library services have in common?

Facts about Viagra (Sildenafil):

Originally intended as a treatment for angina, a heart condition that constricts the vessels that supply the heart with blood

Pfizer, the manufacturer of Viagra, was close to abandoning the drug until it started listening to the users and the reported side-effects.

The rest is history. See more about Viagra and the discovery of other drugs by accident, here.

Library Services:

During a recent project with the objective of re-engineering citizen services for a large municipality in Europe, including library services, our projected use case for the technology in play (Heads Up Displays) was deemed as not impactful enough. We simply did not want to expend too much energy on furthering the solution as the ROI did not make sense….until we looked deeper and different.

What about your Sponsors?

Sponsors were a stakeholder group that had not previously been considered but once we started chatting, imagining, running through the jobs-to-be-done and user experiences it was obvious. Using Google Glass the staff in the libraries would be able to:

Faster, easier and more convenient document activities, special events and other sponsor relevant material at the library

Faster, easier and more convenient gather and enhance said content to be sponsor worthy material

Faster, easier and more convenient distributes said content to the sponsors

Communicate and involve sponsors, possibly even in real-time at the events (Example: See what I see function (hangout))

Collect, enhance and distribute micro-content for times when it made sense. Example: A particularly well-attended event. During the holiday season and into the new year (when sponsorship contracts are being renewed).

These represented the usual workflows in relation to sponsors.
In addition, we identified additional value enhancing activities that the technology would enable without causing extra work to the staff:

Lessons learned:

What might seem as waste, mistakes and chance might have the seeds for a breakthrough solution in it? Action: Look deeper and look different.

Explore various context (stakeholders, environment, process, product) and you’ll be able to look different and discover. Only by knowing that sponsorship is a significant part of public service for our government entity were we able to provide input to an alternative use case for Google Glass. Action: Build domain experience and listen to users.

What wasted efforts have you experienced lately? What would happen if you looked deeper, differently or explored different context?

To chat about Lean Business Building, innovation and growth please contact us via hello@katapultgroup.com or call us at +1.844.528.2785.